This great city was built on both sides of the Euphrates, was fifteen miles square, with gardens and fields capable of supporting a large population, and was stocked with provisions to maintain a siege of indefinite length against any enemy.  The accounts of its walls and fortifications exceed belief, estimated by Herodotus to be three hundred and fifty feet in height, with a wide moat surrounding them, which could not be bridged or crossed by an invading army.  The soldiers of Narbonadius looked with derision on the veteran forces of Cyrus, although they were inured to the hardships and privations of incessant war.  To all appearance the city was impregnable, and could be taken only by unusual methods.  But the genius of the Persian conqueror, according to traditional accounts, surmounted all difficulties.  Who else would have thought of diverting the Euphrates from its bed into the canals and gigantic reservoirs which Nebuchadnezzar had built for purposes of irrigation?  Yet this seems to have been done.  Taking advantage of a festival, when the whole population were given over to bacchanalian orgies, and therefore off their guard, Cyrus advanced, under the cover of a dark night, by the bed of the river, now dry, and easily surprised the drunken city, slaying the king, with a thousand of his lords, as he was banqueting in his palace.  The slightest accident or miscarriage would have defeated so bold an operation.  The success of Cyrus had all the mystery and solemnity of a Providential event.  Though no miracle was wrought, the fall of Babylon—­so strong, so proud, so defiant—­was as wonderful as the passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, or the crumbling walls of Jericho before the blasts of the trumpets of Joshua.

However, this account is to be taken with some reserve, since by the discoveries of historical “cylinders,”—­the clay books whereon the Chaldaean priests and scribes recorded the main facts of the reigns of their monarchs,—­and especially one called the “Proclamation Cylinder,” prepared for Cyrus after the fall of Babylon, it would seem that dissension and treachery within had much to do with facilitating the entrance of the invader.  Narbonadius, the second successor of Nebuchadnezzar, had quarrelled with the priesthood of Babylon, and neglected the worship of Bel-Marduk and Nebo, the special patron gods of that city.  The captive Jews also, who had been now nearly fifty years in the land, had grown more zealous for their own God and religion, more influential and wealthy, and even had become in some sort a power in the State.  The invasion of Cyrus—­a monotheist like themselves—­must have seemed to them a special providence from Jehovah; indeed, we know that it did, from the records in II.  Chronicles xxxvi. 22, 23:  “The Lord stirred up the spirit of Koresh, King of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing.”  The same words occur in the beginning of the Book of Ezra, both referring to the sending home of the Jews after the fall of Babylon; the forty-sixth chapter of Isaiah also:  “The Lord saith of Koresh, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure.”